TANKA for November 29th, 2008

I love tanka, no secret here. I find this ancient Japanese form of poetry to be an intensely personal form and expressive of things that can’t be said in ordinary sentences. I have been writing tanka for a year now, and find I am just scratching the surface of its potential.

I came across this line: “She has mounted my soul” in Japanese..or a translation from the Japanese. It means that ‘she’ has completely taken over me, she has captured my heart…something in that vein. But what a powerful sentence. I had to weave it into a tanka, in fact, to me, the soul is intangible…so in ‘mounting’ the soul (and clinging with strong legs…) ‘she’ makes solid that which is intangible.

This is just one reason I love tanka because it is so….multi-faceted.

Lady Nyo

TANKA FOR NOVEMBER 29th, 2008

#1

This grim November,
The month of my father’s death.
Always bittersweet.
My memories float, weak ghosts,
Hauntings in the fog of life.

#2

A mind that obeys
And becomes one with nature
Sees through four seasons
Embellished with life forces,
And completes a discipline.

#3

When nature is known
Reason for awe can be found
In familiar sights.
Intimacy at the core—
Astounding revelation!

#4

The full moon above
Floats on blackened velvet seas,
Poet’s perfection!
But who does not yearn for a
Crescent in lavender sky?

#5.

Birds fly in the blue.
All is gray upon the earth,
Heart stopped with sorrow.
White cranes lifts off calm waters,
My heart tries to follow them.

#6.

In this single branch
Of a wintry holly,
A hundred words hide.
A thousand blushes appear.
Do not overlook the thorns.

#7.

Lithe-bodied, she climbs-
She has now mounted my soul!
Clinging with strong legs
Her breasts pressed against me,
Shaping an intangible thing.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

Tags: grief, Japanese Poetry forms, soul-mounting, tanka